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SP6CIAL COLLECTION.*.
ubc reports
Vol. 23, No. 1, Jan. 19, 1977. Published by
Information Services, University of B.C., 2075
Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5.
ISSN 0497-2929. J. A. Banham and Judith
Walker, editors.
George Street in Prince George in 1914. The following year
the city was incorporated and chose its present name.
Prince George today — one of the fastest-growing centres in
B.C. with a population that doubles every decade.
UBC AND PRINCE GEORGE:
A lively interaction
This week's edition of UBC Reports focuses on the City
of Prince George, one of the fastest-growing centres in the
Interior of British Columbia.
Prince George is one of many areas of the province
where UBC is heavily involved. Some of these areas are
being featured in UBC Reports to coincide with visits by
UBC's president, Dr. Douglas Kenny. Excerpts from
President Kenny's Jan. 18 speech to the Prince George
Rotary Club begin on page 4.
The relationship between Prince George and UBC is
many-sided and goes back many years. We're both 61 years
old, for one thing. Prince George was incorporated and
chose its present name in 1915, the same year UBC opened
its doors to students in Vancouver. The pictures at the top
and bottom of this page contrast the appearance of Prince
George and UBC then and now.
There's also the fact that some 230 students from Prince
George are at UBC this year, 109 in arts and science and the
balance in professional schools. Ten are in agriculture or
forestry; 14 in engineering and architecture; 17 in medicine,
dentistry or one of the other health sciences; 12 are in law;
48 in education; and 16 are in commerce. And hundreds of
other Prince George students and professional men and
women have annual contact with UBC through Summer
Session or continuing education programs.
Then there's the fact that 768 graduates of the
University live in the City of Prince George. Not all of these
alumni are professional people; 233 hold degrees in
non-professional areas.
Add to this the fact that over the years faculty members
and students from forestry, agricultural sciences, mineral
engineering and metallurgy, commerce and medicine have
come to know Prince George and district through dozens of
research projects, and you'll realize that B.C.'s largest
University has had and will continue to have a very lively
interaction with Prince George.
But more of that inside . . .
In 1915 UBC opened its doors to students in the so-called
"Fairview shacks" near the Vancouver General Hospital.
UBC today enrols more than 31,000 students for credit
programs held on campus or in other B.C. centres. UBC and Prince George:
Research for
the future
Serving the entire province has been
a constant in the history of the
University of British Columbia.
Since opening its doors to students
just over 60 years ago, UBC has done
its best to implement this concept
through its teaching, research and
public service.
And over the years the City of
Prince George, in the geographical
heartland of the province, has
benefited from teaching, research and
services by UBC faculty members and
students in a wide variety of fields,
including geology, forestry, mineral
engineering, agricultural sciences,
economics, transportation studies and
medicine.
The late Prof. M.Y. Williams, a
pioneering Canadian geologist and a
colorful figure in UBC's history until
his death at the age of 90 in 1974,
visited the Prince George and Cariboo
areas frequently in the 1920s and
1930s to carry out geological surveys.
In 1929-30 he was in charge of mineral
exploration for a survey of resources
along the Pacific Great Eastern
Railway (now the B.C. Railway) in the
Cariboo.
And an early history of the
University, written to mark UBC's
25th anniversary, records that in the
winter of 1935-36 the University
sponsored more than 500 lectures in
various parts of the province, many of
them in the central Interior.
The same publication records that
". . .reports have been made on the
forest resources of the northern
Interior of B.C. jointly for the
provincial government and the two
great Canadian railways."
In 1946, UBC and the Canada and
B.C. Departments of Agriculture
published a soil survey of the Prince
George area carried out by Professor
Emeritus D. G. Laird.
UBC researchers continue to make
their presence felt in the Prince George
area. Three recent reports by UBC
faculty members are likely to have a
significant impact on the city and the
area that surrounds it.
The forest industry, long the key to
2/UBC Reports/Jan. 19, 1977
Prince George's growth and
development, will be significantly
affected by the recently issued report
of the Royal Commission on Forest
Resources. The sole commissioner
appointed by the provincial
government to investigate the industry
was Prof. Peter Pearse, of UBC's
Department of Economics.
Prof. Pearse's report, now being
studied by the provincial government,
is likely to have a significant effect on
pulpwood harvesting in the Prince
George area. The city, incidentally,
was the site of the first of Prof.
Pearse's six public hearings. He heard
submissions from 21 organizations and
individuals there.
If Prince George's past and present
is founded on the forest industry, two
UBC scientists believe that its future
could well be linked to mining.
Prof. John B. Evans, head of UBC's
Department of Mineral Engineering,
says exploitation of huge deposits of
high-grade coking coal in the Rocky
Mountain trench could make Prince
George a manufacturing centre in the
future, and certainly will mean the
next major economic advance for the
city.
His view is shared by Prof. Ian
Warren, of UBC's Department of
Metallurgy, who was a key member of
a provincial government task force
established in 1975 to survey all
aspects of coal production and
utilization in B.C.
Prof. Warren was a member of the
senior policy group that drew up
recommendations (not yet made
public) for the future exploitation of
B.C. coal. He was also chairman and
co-ordinator of the technical group
that produced an exhaustive report,
published in October, 1976, on the
amount and types of coal in B.C., the
problems of exploiting coal reserves,
and the constraints involved in
transportation and trained manpower
to get the coal out of the ground, as
well as possible alternative uses for this
valuable natural resource.
A third report that charts the
future development for the entire
central region of British Columbia,
prepared under a 1974 agreement
between the provincial and federal
governments, was written by two
University of B.C. economists.
Drs. James D. Rae and John D.
Boyd prepared a series of regional
economic studies which break new
ground in the study of social and
economic development in B.C. Their
"Summary Report of Development
Possibilities in the Central Region of
British Columbia," based on intensive
technical studies , is designed to
encourage discussion of regional goals
and the means of attaining them.
The report identifies Prince George
and vicinity as a potential major
growth centre, adequate to
accommodate a population in excess
of 250,000. The report predicts that if
the government acts in a planned
manner to encourage socio-economic
development in the Central Region,
Prince George could receive seven
major industrial projects related to
pulp and paper and coal mining over
the next 12 to 13 years.
These three major reports are only
the tip of UBC's total research
involvement with the Prince George
area.
As might be expected, the UBC
faculty with the biggest interest in the
region is Forestry. Here's a partial list
of UBC researchers and their projects.
Jack Walters, director of UBC's
research forest and inventor of a
"gun" that shoots tree seedlings into
the ground, is now building an
automatic seedling-planting machine
especially designed for use in the
Prince George Forest District.
Preliminary work was carried out last
June north of Quesnel and Mr. Walters
will return to the area this summer for
further work. The project is supported
with funds from the federal and
provincial governments.
Dr. David Haley, also of Foresty,
undertook the first-ever examination
of the boundaries of sustained-yield
forest units in the north-central
Interior in 1975-76 under a contract
from the B.C. Forest Service. His
study recommended altering the
boundaries of the sustained-yield units
to conform to changing economic
conditions such as the location of mills
and the expanding transportation
pattern in the area.
Dr. Neil Byron, a graduate student
working under Dr. Haley, used
material gathered in the Prince George
area as the basis for his Doctor of
Philosophy degree thesis awarded in
1976. He investigated the influence of
sustained-yield forest policy on
community stability, including such
things as employment and income levels, in the north-central region
including Prince George.
Another of Dr. Haley's graduate
students. Rod Beaumont, is about to
begin a study in the Prince George area
on the effects that the holders of
timber rights have on forest policy.
Mr. Beaumont was formerly employed
as a forester by Northwood Pulp and
Paper in Prince George.
Dr. Donald Munro has visited
regularly Prince George since the early
1960s for Industrial Forest Service, a
major consulting frm. With services
purchased from the University, that
company is now heavily involved in
the application of computer
techniques to forestry.
"whole-tree" harvesting about 50
miles east of Prince George. Whole-tree
harvesting means removing the entire
tree from the forest environment,
including the tree crown, where many
of the nutrients critical to tree growth
are concentrated. Dr. Kimmins is
trying to find out just how much
nutrient is lost through this type of
logging and whether the practice
significantly affects regeneration of
the forest.
Not all members of UBC's Faculty
of Forestry are concerned with tree
growth and harvesting. In recent years
the faculty has been studying the
multiple use of forests, including
tourism and recreation.
Since 1972, UBC faculty members
and students from Forestry have been
working on Computer-Assisted
Resource Planning (CARP), a project
being carried out in the West Lake
Public Sustained-Yield Unit near
Prince George.
The object of CARP is to develop
an overall economic policy for the unit
that reflects regional economic
objectives while taking into account
the realities of forest biology and the
harvesting capabilities of those who
hold timber licences in the area. The
results of the study will guide the B.C.
Forest Service, which is funding the
project, in the implementation of
forest policy in the Prince George area.
Two faculty members — Glen
Young and Douglas Williams — have
been active with CARP since its
inception in 1972 and at least five
UBC students have used material
gathered during the CARP project as
the basis for graduating theses.
Another forester, Dr. J. P.
Kimmins, is making a forest-ecology
study, examining the impact of
Indicative of this trend is the work
of Dr. Peter Dooling, who was
commissioned by the Parks Branch of
the Department of Recreation and
Conservation to study the travel
corridor of the northern part of the
province. His aim is to help the
provincial government improve its
planning for the use of forest lands for
recreation, tourism and other
purposes.
Dr. Dooling has already produced
five volumes of his six-volume study of
the "Golden Circle," which stretches
from Prince George to the Yukon
border.
UBC's Faculty of Agricultural
Sciences is also involved with projects
in the central I nterior, many of them
having to do with the management of
range lands. This year, the faculty
introduced a new rangeland resources
option in response to growing student
and government interest in range
management.
In February, members of the
Agricultural Sciences faculty will be in
the Prince Georqp W'.lli.inr; Lake area
for a one-week workshop on rangeland
management for local ranchers and
government officials. The workshop
will deal with recent developments in
management practice and the multiple
use of rangeland for pasture, forestry
and recreation.
Dr. Michael Pitt, of Plant Science, is
concerned with the ecology of wetland
meadows, areas of shallow, wet soils
where few or no trees grow and which
are important grazing lands. This
summer he will supervise a research
project that will look into the
fundamental ecological processes,
including the plant-species
composition and productivity of these
areas.
UBC soil scientists were in the
Prince George area in June, 1976, with
federal and provincial government
officials to study soils and soil-related
problems. Members of the same
department are co-operating with
scientists at the Canada Agriculture
Research Station on studies related to
forage crops. Undergraduate and
graduate students are also involved in
this project.
A member of the Department of
Agricultural Economics is co-operating
with the Prince George district
agriculturalist to produce a model of
beef operations in the district as an aid
to evaluating government expenditures
on local community pastures.
The Department of Mineral
Engineering is making several studies
that bear on coal and coal production.
A research team is looking into the
possibility of utilizing "coal fines,"
coal-bearing material that is currently
discarded, to produce a pelleted form
of coal and thus make fuller use of this
resource for industrial purposes.
Working under contract, the
department has studied the strength
characteristics of rocks surrounding
coal deposits at sites northeast of
Prince George and it has carried out
similar studies on the monitoring of
the strength of rocks surrounding the
Gibraltar open-pit mine at McCleese
Lake, south of Prince George.
The transportation division of the
Faculty of Commerce and Business
Administration has an active research
program on railway and commercial
trucking rates and highway
improvements and planning in
northern B.C., including Prince
George.
And finally, Jessie McCarthy,
of the Department of Health Care and
Epidemiology in the Faculty of
Medicine, is nearing completion of a
comparative study to determine the
relationship between air quality and
health problems in the cities of Trail
and Prince George. She expects the
results will be available later this year.
UBC Reports/Jan. 19, 1977/3 PRESIDENT KENNY SPE
OUR COMM
We at UBC want
to learn more
about you . . .
your needs . . .
ideas . . . your
hopes for the future
President Douglas Kenny was in
Prince George on Jan. 18, where he
visited New Caledonia College and met
with community leaders and alumni.
Here are excerpts from his noon-hour
address, entitled "Our Common
Future," to the Prince George Rotary
Club.
... I am here today to talk
about. . . the partnership between the
University of British Columbia and the
people of this province. I hope that
our talking together today can help
reaffirm and strengthen that
partnership.
The fact is that you people of the
Prince George area and we people at
the University have a lot in common.
More than you might think. I'd like to
talk today about some of the things
we share. I'd like to encourage you to
learn more about your University.
Even more important, I want to ensure
you that we at UBC want to learn
more about you, about your needs,
your ideas, your hopes for the future.
I think that's important, because if
we can learn more about each other,
we can work together more effectively
for our common well-being. If we
know each other better, we can more
effectively build our common future.
It is a common future, because we are
tied together. We will sink or swim
together.
So a working partnership between
us is not just desirable. It's necessary.
Without your co-operation and help,
UBC's future will be less bright.
And . . . without UBC's co-operation
the future of this province and this
region will also be less bright. In short,
we need each other. . .
The basic fact is this: the Province
of British Columbia is a frontier
society. We are new, growing,
independent and energetic. You who
live in the Prince George area probably
appreciate that more than the people
down on the coast. You live face to
face with the physical fact of the
frontier. As your mayor, Ham Moffat,
once said, living here is "like sitting on
the corner of an underdeveloped
continent." That's a frontier fact, a
frontier attitude.
What are the characteristics of a
.frontier society? There are quite a few,
but four of them seem especially
important to me. Frontier people are
independent; they're practical; they're
aggressive; and they look forward, not
back. These four attributes are clearly
present in B.C., and . . . they're
particularly strong in the heartland of
the province.
Now that description may sound
accurate to you . . . when it comes to
the province — or at least this part of
the province. But what's it got to do
with the University? A great deal.
UBC is also a frontier community.
Like you, we live and work on the
edge of the future. Like you, we
respect ability and accomplishment
more than inherited status or privilege.
Like you, we're independent minded,
we tend to think our own way, to
make our own decisions, to resist
undue interference with our right and
duty to do our job as we see it. Like
you, we respect assertiveness and
aggressiveness: we call them
intellectual curiosity and daring.
In other words, even though the
University deals in ideas, we still have
and will always maintain a frontier
attitude. We still value and cherish
those frontier values.
There are even more things UBC
and Prince George have in common. I
don't know how many of you are
aware of it, but we were born at the
same time. You probably do know
that your city was incorporated in
1915. UBC was born in the same year.
You see, we are both young upstarts.
In 1915 a few hundred people living in
shacks up here decided to get together
and become a city, and by a vote of
153 to 13 decided to take the name
Prince George. In that same year, 379
students and 34 faculty members got
together in some shacks in the
Fairview section of Vancouver and
became the beginning of UBC.
In the 60-odd years since then,
both of us have done pretty well.
From the original 166 citizens who
voted your incorporation, you have
grown to some 65,000 people, with an
average income 13 per cent above the
national average, building more than
1,300 dwelling units and producing
more than 1,500 babies in 1975 alone,
with an active cultural, economic and
social life, a first-rate community
college, thriving industry and business.
UBC has grown a lot in its 61 years
too. From the original 379 students,
we have grown to a total of 31,000
students in credit programs in 1976, a
4/UBC Reports/Jan. 19, 1977 AKS IN PRINCE GEORGE
ON FUTURE
faculty of 1,700 people, and a support
staff of more than 2,800. In that 60
years, we have graduated 77,000
students. 55,000 of them have
remained in Canada, and more than
45,000 of these here in B.C.
But as I said a minute ago, frontier
people look ahead, not back. It's our
future that matters. And if our
common future is going to be a good
one, we should be thinking together
about the best way of working for it.
That means that together we face
two basic problems. These days that
means more than just being able to
stand the cold, build a house, wrestle a
living out of the land. Today's
frontier, as we all know, demands
more complex survival skills. Guts and
persistence are still important, but
they're not enough all by themselves.
Today's frontier is changing rapidly,
sometimes so fast it's hard to keep
track of. The environment we have to
deal with is not only cold but
complex; not just tough but shifty.
The main threat on today's frontier is
future shock. This is true not only
here in your country but in our
territory too. We have to cope with
changing economic climates, startling
shifts in world markets. We have to
cope with expanding ideas and
knowledge, dizzying developments in
science and technologies. We both
need highly developed and widely
varied skills to survive. That's the first
problem we share.
The second problem is something
more. It's not enough just to be able
to survive on the frontier. We have to
learn how to thrive on the frontier. It's
no longer sufficient just to cope with
the present, which is hard. We have to
be able to cope with the future, which
is much harder. Not just prepare for
the future, butcreafe the future. If we
can't do it for ourselves, someone else
will do it for us — and I don't think we
want to live in a future someone else
has imposed on us. I don't think we
want to wake up one day to a future
we just didn't see coming because we
didn't think ahead.
Those are the two problems, then.
How to acquire and develop skills to
cope with the present, and skills to
create the future we want — our own
future.
What are we doing about it?
I can only speak for the University
of course . . . First, we are trying to
help provide basic survival skills: — in
co-operation with the other
universities and colleges . . .. The basic
survival skills we're trying to provide
consist of the fundamental
post-secondary education which is an
essential instrument for social and
individual survival in today's world . . .
when it comes to providing the
high-quality training and continuing
education needed by professional
people in a modern community we're
trying our best to help.
But for survival in a modern
frontier society more than professional
skills are needed. Just as important in
the long run is the kind of education
which broadens and deepens the mind
in a more general way.
. . . Survival on today's frontier
requires not just .the ability to do
something practical. It also requires
the ability to perceive the realities of
the world clearly and to see its
possibilities — to understand how it
really works and, even more
important, how it can work.
That is what education is about —
both professional and general
education. It is building human
capital. It is developing, strengthening,
fine-tuning the most important natural
resource there is: the human brain. We
can develop lumber, iron, copper, all
the other natural resources till we're
rich as Croesus, but it won't be enough
if we don't also develop that crucial
human resource. Educated minds are
our only infinitely renewable source of
wealth. If we neglect to develop that
resource, we face a future not just
intellectually and culturally poorer;
we face a future that will also be
materially poorer.
That's what I mean by not only
surviving but thriving on the frontier.
We can flourish if we are free. And we
can only be free if we have learned
enough to be able to decide our own
future and not let someone else decide
it for us. Educated human beings can't
be imposed on, taken advantage of, or
exploited. They can make their own
future because in the best sense they
are self-made. That's what a really
self-made person is: one who has
learned enough about the world, about
himself and other human beings, so
that he or she can make free decisions
Please turn to p. 6
Educated minds
are our only
infinitely renewable
source of wealth
UBC Reports/Jan. 19, 1977/5 Continued from p. 5
and perform free actions. That's the
only kind of person that can not only
survive the present but can command
and create his or her own future ....
The kind of education I've been
talking about is the one most
important means toward that end. It's
the kind of education that takes
what's been learned in the past, what's
happening in the future, and brings
them to bear on what lies ahead. And
that kind of education needs more
than good teaching. It needs research.
Research can be defined as systematically and persistently asking crucial
forward-looking questions: "What if?"
"What next?" Real research means
asking those questions about every
aspect of nature and human activity.
We are trying to ask those questions at
UBC. ..
Practical research creates links
between the present and the
immediate future. But practical
research is always based on impractical
research — that is, pure research. Often
we have to ask simply "Why?", without
knowing the answer, before we can
hope to find out how. Basic, pure
research in science, the humanities and
social sciences is the groundwork on
which the long-range future is built.
I ask you to learn
more about what
the University is doing
and could be doing
So if you think the University is
impractical, living on Cloud Nine,
preoccupied with purely theoretical,
useless ideas, remember that the future
is a long time. Somebody's got to look
further ahead than just tomorrow or
the day after. Pure, imaginative,
seemingly impractical research is your
telescope into the future.
That's how the University is a lot
more practical than you might think.
Our job is the longer view. We have to
consider impractical possibilities now
so that 60 years from now we'll have
some practical ones to work with.
Without the long view, our future
could turn out to be pretty short.
I've outlined a little of what we're
trying to do as our part of our
partnership with you. We share a
common future and so we face a
common challenge — and that
challenge isn't an easy one. So I ask
you—how can we work together? How
6/UBC Reports/Jan. 19, 1977
can we collaborate, not just to survive
on this new frontier we live in, but to
conquer it? How can we use our
strengths to protect our independence
and our freedom? That will take trained
and educated minds, and a lot of
courage and skill. And it will take
mutual understanding and
co-operation.
I've tried to make it clear that we
are willing and eager to join with you
in doing the job. We still have a lot to
learn about how to do that job better,
but we'll keep on trying to learn. And
we need your help.
Don't worry. I'm not asking you
for money. You already help us with
your taxes. We haven't forgotten that
or the responsibility that goes with it.
But there are other ways of working
together that are just as important.
First, we need your understanding
of the importance of the University
for our future. In these few minutes
I've tried to show how that future
depends to a great extent on good
higher education. I ask you to
recognize that and support that need,
not just for UBC's sake, but for your
own sake as well. If you still don't feel
that higher education is really a
necessity for our future, then I ask you
to try to learn more about what the
University's doing and could be doing.
Think about it.... In a time of
economic restraint like this, a lot of
people — both in and out of
government — are questioning whether
universities are just a luxury. They are
not. They are a necessity, unless we
want to give up our future. So the first
thing I'm asking from you as partners
is: keep an open mind and take the
long view.
The second thing I'm asking is, tell
us more about yourselves. Just as you
may need to learn more about the
University, the University needs to
learn more about you. We can do a
better job if we know more about your
needs and your problems. But we also
need to know about your hopes and
dreams. How do you see our common
future? What possibilities do you see?
Tell us about them. I invite you to
write to us — to me personally, to
deans or faculty members, to your sons
or daughters who may be at UBC —
and let us know your needs, your
ideas, your questions. I promise we
will listen thoughtfully to what you
have to say. And I promise we'll
answer every letter.
So that's my proposal to you. We
live on the same frontier. We share the
same future. What that future is
depends on how well we work
together.
UBC and Prince George have both
had a pretty good first 60 years.
Working together, I think the next 60
years can be even better.
UBC and
Of the three main areas of any
university's activities — teaching,
research and public service — teaching
is the activity that touches directly the
greatest number of people and, in
some way, changes their lives.
UBC has always placed great
stress on teaching, both at its
Vancouver campus and throughout the
province. UBC's extension, or
Continuing Education, program has
been going on for more than 40 years
now, and a significant part of that
program has involved the people of
Prince George, both as students and
initiators of new courses.
UBC's teaching involvement with
the people of Prince George was
evident 17 years ago when that city
was chosen to be the site of a new
development in extramural teaching
by UBC. Dr. Ronald Baker of UBC's
English department, now president of
the University of Prince Edward
Island, spent his full academic year in
1960 giving three credit courses in
university English to Prince George
teachers and other interested members
of the community. The scheme was
suggested and underwritten by the
Prince George school board.
Since that time a whole range of
UBC courses and programs has been
offered in the Prince George region —
from short programs for municipal
administrators to full-year
correspondence courses.
One of the UBC groups with a
major involvement in the Prince
George region is the Centre for
Continuing Education. Its various
branches offer a variety of programs
for professionals in the area.
Lawyers
Prince George lawyers have taken
advantage of a number of case studies
and legal proceedings published by the
Centre for Continuing Education. Over
the past year, 150 copies of these legal
publications have been sent to Prince
George lawyers. The legal education
branch also offered five one- and
two-day workshops in the Prince
George area last year on such subjects
as Supreme Court rules and mechanic's
liens. These courses, taught by UBC
professors and practising lawyers, Prince George:
Continuing education involves us all
attracted 134 registrants in total and
more courses are planned for this year.
Engineers
Professional engineers in the
Prince George area also took part in
UBC's continuing education program
last year, through a three-day
conference on "Management
Problems" attended by engineers and
professional foresters. This branch of
continuing education annually offers
two seminars in the Prince George area
in engineering management.
Cattle breeders
The annual Stockman's
Conference for cattle breeders from
throughout the province, as well as
government and packing house
representatives, is going to be held in
Prince George this year for the first
time. The previous 16 conferences, all
co-sponsored by UBC's Centre for
Continuing Education, have been held
in the Kamloops area and have usually
attracted more than 100 participants.
Women
Seventeen women from Prince
George, Vanderhoof and Fraser Lake
took part in an Assertiveness Training
Program last year sponsored by the
Women's Resources Centre at UBC
and held in Fraser Lake. (Also
attending that program was a
17-year-old male.) These assertiveness
programs for women were pioneered
by UBC three years ago and are
offered throughout the province upon
request. A program on learning
opportunities for women is planned
for this month in Prince George, with
Jan Willis of the Canadian Association
for Adult Education speaking to a
group at the Prince George College of
New Caledonia on Jan. 26.
Sewage plant operators
Sewage plant operators and
municipal employees of Prince George
were among the 75 people who
attended a Water and Waste course in
November. This course, which
included techniques for operating
sewage plants in northern climates at
the request of participants, was also
sponsored in part by the UBC Centre
for Continuing Education.
Civic administrators
The University's presence in the
central part of B.C. is felt by a wide
range of people, from the cattle
ranchers mentioned above to
municipal administrators. Over the
past five or six years, between 500 and
600 elected officials, many of them
from areas around Prince George, have
taken part in annual seminars on such
subjects as capital budgeting and
financing sponsored by UBC in
co-operation with the North Central
Municipal Association.
English teachers
Workshops for teachers in Prince
George are a frequent occurrence and
part of UBC's reach into the rest of
the province. For example, an
in-service workshop on composition
will be offered to teachers of English
in Prince George this spring as part of
UBC's Education Extension program.
And teachers from two Prince George
districts are taking part in the planning
of a conference co-sponsored by UBC
to be held in Kelowna in March.
Vocational instructors
One of four core courses for the
Instructor's Diploma Program for
vocational instructors, administered by
UBC, was offered in October in Prince
George. That program drew eight
participants who will continue to work
toward their diploma through
correspondence courses from UBC or
through future courses held in Prince
George. The diploma is designed for
instructors employed in vocational
schools, community colleges and other
institutions which offer specialty
training.
Adult educators
Three programs on the training of
adult educators to be held in
co-operation with the College of New
Caledonia in Prince George are
planned for late April or early May of
this year. UBC and the regional college
often work closely in defining'needs
and planning programs for the people
in Prince George.
Teachers
The Faculty of Education at UBC
last year offered a half-year (VA unit)
credit course to 15 practising teachers
in the Prince George area. The
instructor of the course, Dr. Charlotte
David of UBC's Department of Special
Education, flew to Prince George
every weekend to give lectures for the
course, Introduction to Special
Education. That same system was used
in the fall of last year for a credit
course in school library management,
the second half of which is offered this
spring. The instructor of that course,
Mel Rainey, a full-time member of
UBC's Faculty of Education, also flew
to Prince George every weekend to
give lectures to the 44 teachers
enrolled. However, in spite of the
travel costs, both courses were offered
for the same fees as they would cost at
UBC's Vancouver campus.
High school students
UBC has also worked with people
in the Prince George area in developing
school curricula. Last summer, a
student from UBC's Department of
Geological Sciences under the
direction of Dr. J. L. Rau spent time
in the Prince George area gathering
background material for a guide to
teaching earth science in Prince George
high schools. The material is being
prepared by UBC as a package
specifically for use in the Prince
George area and should be available in
the coming school year.
Native Indians
Native Indian students in Prince
George and the surrounding area will
soon benefit from a UBC program
designed to increase the number of
Indian teachers in the B.C. school
system. The Native Indian Teacher
Education Program (NITEP) operates
four decentralized teacher training
Continued on p. 8
UBC Reports/Jan. 19, 1977/7 Continued from p. 7
facilities throughout the province, and
students from Prince George are
enrolled in the program at two of
these facilities, in Williams Lake and
Kamloops. After completing two years
of instruction at these off-campus
centres near the homes of many native
Indian students, and two years at
UBC, graduates will have earned a
Bachelor of Education degree from
UBC and be qualified to teach in B.C.
schools.
Corresponders
Correspondence courses are also
an important point of contact with
UBC for many Prince George people.
At present, 55 people from the Prince
George region are taking UBC credit
courses through correspondence in all
fields offered by the Faculty of Arts.
Businessmen
Many of the professional schools
at UBC offer programs in the Prince
George region for professionals
wanting information on current
problems and issues in their fields.
Businessmen in the city have benefited
from seminars on the Trade Practices
Act held in Prince George in 1975.
People at the management level in the
resource industries in the region will
possibly be offered a package of
seminars on problems in economics,
taxation, labor relations and the like in
the fall if the program is well received
in Vancouver this spring. The seminars
will be taught by faculty members in
Commerce and Business
Administration at UBC as well as
industry representatives.
Health professionals
Continuing education programs
in the health sciences are a growing
part of UBC's outreach to Prince
George and throughout the province.
The nursing school at the College of
New Caledonia in Prince George
co-operates with UBC's nursing school
to bring lecturers to the area. Close to
40 dentists and dental auxiliaries in
the Prince George region have
attended an annual seminar on various
aspects of dentistry held in that city,
and two more courses are proposed for
Prince George this year. Continuing
education for pharmacists in Prince
George is co-ordinated by a Prince
George resident, Cliff Dezell, a
pharmacist employed at the Prince
George Regional Hospital, who can
identify the local needs of pharmacists
in his region and make use of the
courses and materials which UBC
offers to pharmacists throughout the
province.
Medical students
UBC students, as well as faculty
members, are active in the area. Prince
George is the site of some practical
training for UBC's medical students.
Last summer three medical students
lived and worked in Prince George for
periods of four to six weeks where
they received their introduction to the
practical delivery of health care. The
three students — Andrew Lyn, Linda
Nilson and Peter Lam - worked under
the supervision of local doctors giving
care to families in the area.
New Caledonia students
And co-operation does not only
involve people from UBC going to
Prince George. Each year, 30 or more
students from the College of New
Caledonia visit UBC's research forest
near Haney as part of a visit to the
Lower Mainland to see developments
related to their program in forest
technology. UBC Forestry faculty
spend an entire day with the students
describing some of the more than 100
research projects going on in the
forest.
UBC students
And, of course, there's a lot of
students now enrolled at UBC who
will return to their homes in the Prince
George region to contribute to
continuing education in the area by
sharing the skills and knowledge
they've gained at the University.
Board of Governors approves in principle
expansion of UBC's medical school
The round of University approvals
required to begin the phased
expansion of UBC's medical school has
been completed.
Approved in principle, but subject
to a number of conditions set by
UBC's Board of Governors, are:
• A doubling of admissions to the
medical school from the present 80
students to 160;
• Construction of a 240-bed
teaching hospital and additional basic
science facilities on the UBC campus;
and
• Upgrading of clinical teaching
facilities at downtown hospitals
associated with the medical school.
The Faculty of Medicine approved
expansion of its class on Dec. 6 and
Senate approved it on Dec. 15.
The Board of Governors, which met
on Dec. 29, approved the expansion
subject to these conditions:
• Specific approval by the Board of
the necessary funding and other
8/UBC Reports/Jan. 19, 1977
resources being made available for
each phase of expansion of the
medical class at least one year in
advance of that phase;
• Availability of the necessary
physical resources and additional
operating funds recommended by the
president after consultation with the
appropriate persons and bodies and
approved by the Board;
• Provision of the necessary
additional operating funds in a manner
which in the judgment of the president
and Board will not adversely affect the
funding and resources available to
other University programs; and
• Bearing in mind that the funding
of programs and activities of the
Faculty of Medicine may be subject to
similar constraints as other programs
and activities of the University.
Approval in principle for
construction of the hospital and basic
science facilities on campus and
expansion of clinical facilities at
associated downtown hospitals was
given by the Board subject to the
following conditions:
• Subsequent approval by the
Board of the necessary financing and
related arrangements for these
facilities; and
• Assurance being given to the
Board by the president at the
appropriate time that the appropriate
University authorities have approved
the academic suitability of the
facilities.
Expansion of the medical school,
construction of a campus hospital and
the upgrading of clinical teaching
facilities at downtown hospitals was
first proposed by the provincial
government in March, 1976. The
government said $50 million was
available for the project, half of which
would come from the federal
government.
Education Minister Pat McGeer said
in November that the expansion
program was a government priority.